Darkly
by LegionInfinity
Summary: Though our paths may spin in different directions, sometimes, a hero's path follows one of great darkness, before the path of light can be found. Beaten and abandoned by the world, Lloyd Garmadon believed the same as everyone else: That his destiny followed that of his father, deep into the darkness. Here lies the beginnings of a hero, one who tried everything to be a villain.
1. Chapter 1

" _ **A boy is the only thing that God can use to make a man."**_

 _ **-Author Unknown**_

 _Ba-bum._

 _Ba-bum._

 _Ba-bum._

 _Ba-bum._

"Can you hear it?" His hot breath was like sandpaper against my ear. I shivered, trying not to show my disgust.

"Yes." I whispered quietly, stroking the small animal with my thumb, trying to calm its pounding heartbeat.

 _Do not be afraid._

 _Please do not be afraid._

"Can you feel it, beating against your finger like a drum?" He placed a hand on my shoulder. I felt my shoulders tense up, and unfortunately, so did he. He stood up rigidly, I didn't need to look at him to see that. "What do you want to do with it?" The man asked me slyly, as though he could since my empathy, my fear.

"I…I…" I stuttered, trying to hold the rat tighter, trying to make it bite me, so that I would have a reason. It didn't take long for the rodent to become increasingly uncomfortable, and to revert back to its primeval sense of self-defense. Even as his dirty teeth sunk deep into the flesh of my finger, I knew I wasn't going to do it. I couldn't make my grip any tighter. So in one motion, I opened my rigid hand and let the rat fall onto the floor. My joints felt like they were made of iron, rusted to the point of no return. My instructor scoffed, looking at the rat, now curled up in the corner of the room.

"You'll never live up to him." He hissed. His hand darted out and grabbed my injured hand, holding my wrist so tightly that my fingertips began to turn blue. "You don't deserve this blood running through your veins!" He then proceeded to squeeze the bottom of my bleeding finger with his other hand, making a large drop of blood form. I whimpered, turning my head to hide my tears. He let go of my wrist, throwing it towards me in disgust. After a few moments of silence, only interrupted by my quiet whimpers, the man began to laugh.

"Cry, little boy. Cry. Tears will not make you a man, will not make you like your father." The large drop of blood he had created began to run down my finger, creating a sticky path. I felt the drop begin to heat up as it went, like the rest of the blood in my body that had begun to boil. With a cry of rage, I stomped over the corner where the rat was now licking its wounds. I couldn't see, the tears in my eyes had become so hot that they were affecting my vision. With all the strength I could collect from my anger, I placed my foot on top of the rat's torso, and pushed until the bones underneath gave way and the rat stopped squeaking. The drop of blood fell off my fingertip and onto the floor. I turned towards my instructor, who only shrugged.

"Your father would have killed in with his bare hands." And with that, he retreated back into the main part of the school, leaving me alone to reflect on what I had just done.

That night, when every other boy in my dorm was fast asleep, I returned to that room and collected the rat's stiff body. And all alone in the cold, I buried it outside the gate, under the yellow peonies that seemed to glow in the moonlight.

•••

"My mother?" I asked confused, looking towards my uncle, but he offered no answers to me, only shook his head. My eyes fell on the woman standing next to him. She was older, maybe a few years younger than my father. Her hair was gray, changed from years of neglect, and I couldn't tell what color it had been before. The wrinkles around her eyes seemed to give them more character than they would have had when she was younger, but the only thing I cared about was the color of her eyes.

Long ago, my uncle told me that my father had dark eyes, eyes, that he claims, are the reason my mother had fallen in love with him. "But that doesn't matter," my uncle had said, "because you have your mother's eyes."

And this woman that claimed to be my mother, she had bright green eyes, maybe the same shade as mine, but I couldn't tell. I didn't want to tell. The woman smiled at me, revealing more wrinkles and a set of perfectly straight white teeth. "Hello, son." She said to me quietly. "It's been a long time." It was as these words left her mouth that I became aware of the numbers of eyes that were currently on me, but I wouldn't look back, not at any of them, because I knew what they would say, and they wouldn't have answers either. The woman took a small step towards me, and tediously opened her arms. "I've waited a long time to talk to you."

As she neared me, I felt my heartbeat quicken, I felt it begin to bang against my chest and close my lungs off.

 _Can you hear it?_

As the woman reached up to put her arms around me, I felt my arm shoot out and push hers away. "Well, I don't wanna talk to you."

The atmosphere in the room suddenly shifted, which made it ever harder to breathe. My heartbeat got faster once again, my head began to spin. I felt all the eyes still on me, only I felt a specific pair bare into my chest and my soul because she knew what I was thinking. Maybe they all knew. Maybe they could all see. I heard my uncle's words rattle around in my head.

 _Lloyd's mother._

 _Lloyd's mother._

 _Lloyd's mother._

The ringing in my ears didn't stop as I pushed myself through them and ran down the hall, trying to find somewhere, anywhere, where I could breathe again. I didn't stop running until I reached the deep hole, and even then, I almost threw myself in because this was too much. Too much to go through again.

I didn't have a father.

I didn't have a mother.

Then I did.

 _Can you feel it, beating against your finger like a drum?_

•••

"They're just bites. Suck it up." That's what the nurse said when I came in that morning, sniffling and covered in hundreds of angry red bites. To be honest, I should have expected this, the first night in my new dorms, with all new boys, but what I didn't expect them to mess with me. None of the kids in my previous dorm did, and as a matter of fact, they wouldn't even speak to me, much less let an entire farm of fire ants out into my cot.

I don't even know why I bothered to go to the nurse in the first place, the only medical license she had being to hand out cough drops, but I was in pain. Not only did the bites itch, they also burned everywhere my clothing was pressing against them, but all she said was to suck it up, so I tried to do just that.

Though never explicitly stated, classes at Darkley were not mandatory. I mean, only good boys go to class, right? So, after my adventure with the nurse, I opted to stay home in bed that day, or rather, in someone else's bed. We didn't have a janitorial staff at this stupid school, so if I wanted the ants gone, I had to get rid of it myself. I wasn't sure I was ready to face that quite yet, I was still licking my wounds.

Unfortunately, I never got the chance.

"Hey Lloyd!" I heard a young voice call from the other end of the dark hallway. I let out a disappointed sigh. I was so close. "I heard you've been _itching_ to get something off your chest!" I turned slowly, crossing my arms to make myself seem more intimidating, though in truth, I was actually a bit frightened.

"What do you want, Brad?" I asked, trying to snarl, but it came out more like a meow. The group of boys behind Brad, including their ringleader, Gene, snickered, looking towards the instigator for a signal.

"Aw, little Lloyd," Gene said in a mocking tone, "do you need to go home to your mommy? Kisses always make _me_ feel better, especially when I get a papercut." Gene Tipe was never too bright when it came to situations like these, and I had a feeling that his comment about a papercut was supposed to be some kind of insult to the minority of my injuries. I could tell the rest of his posse was confused too, because he had to glare at them to get a quick round of weak laughter. I bit my lip, trying to think quickly of what to say next. Just then, I heard the tell-tale beeping of a garbage truck outside. I smiled broadly and cocked my head.

"I mean, I'd love to stay and chat, but it looks like your ride is here, Gene." I pointed my thumb towards the window nearest to the dumpsters, where the garbage truck could be clearly seen. None of the boys said anything after that, and I felt my smiled get even wider. I had won. I had done better at something than "perfectly evil Gene." I was feeling pretty confident in myself, so I took a step towards them. "Well, I guess now you know not to mess with Lloyd Garma..." And Gene hit me. He hit me hard. I stumbled back against the wall, dizzy from the impact. That's when the other boys began to follow Gene's lead, kicking and scratching at anywhere there was bare skin.

There was a word. A word that was often used as a description, one that I was told to inflict almost daily. A word that made a long chill travel from the base of my spine to the back of my neck. I went almost three years at this school like that, having such a strong reaction to a word, of which I did not even know the true meaning. When I heard my professors speak it with such passion and charisma, I knew they themselves didn't truly understand it.

But in that moment, in that one moment, feeling fingernails against my already ravaged skin, feeling my helplessness, hearing the taunting, the constant buzz of pain, I knew. It was like something had clicked in my head. This. This was the definition of _agony._ And no dictionary could describe what I was feeling in that moment.

 _To truly be a villain,_

A hand finds its way up my loose fitting uniform. A scratch, deep and down my spine. I don't scream.

 _A master of evil,_

I can hear Gene's obnoxious voice, laughing at the sight of myself in a fetal position. A weak attempt to protect myself. I don't scream.

 _You must be willing to do whatever it takes to win._

I'm silently crying now. My arms feel weak and limp crossed over my face. I'm unsure if the substance coming from my nose is snot or blood.

 _Play dirty with no regard._

I don't scream.

 _Have no empathy for anyone or anything._

My left arm gives way, I feel the bone bend and break under the pressure violently applied by one of my classmates. I can't see which one, my eyes are to swollen from the tears. I don't scream.

 _And above all,_

The attack suddenly stops. I suck in a quick breath through my nose. After several moments, I tediously lift my head. I can feel my heart raise with hope. It's all over.

 _You must inflict pure agony on anyone who dares to oppose you._

My ears are fuzzy, so are my eyes. Gene lifts his knee high in the air. A dark haired boy to his right grabs his arm, I think he's pulling on Gene, trying to keep him back. Gene wrestles away from the boy and raises his knee even higher. I only feel his boot against my forehead for a moment, before the world goes dark.

When I wake up, dizzy, the sun is setting, casting an orange glow over the wooden floor boards. I have to use my broken arm to get my aching body into a sitting position. I whimper. When I look down, I see the wood stained with blood, almost too much blood.

I may not have known it then, but as I sat there, broken, beaten, and alone for the first time ever, I began to contemplate that word. And I realized something, something I wouldn't understand until several years later. What I went through, what I had experienced. On that day, I picked my side.

I could never do that to anyone else.

I opened up my mouth, and I screamed.

•••

The hole was so deep that it seemed to go on forever. And despite leading into what I could only assume was the bowels of the Underworld itself, I could feel a breeze coming up. An incredible mind-numbingly cold breeze. I closed my eyes and meditated on the coldness of this breeze for what seemed like an eternity.

"Peaceful, isn't it?" I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound of the voice, though I physically only flinched a bit. I was getting a lot better at hiding my fear. "No, you're not." I signed, hearing her knowing voice answer and once again cut through the dark abyss of the back of my eyelids. When I opened them, trying to ignore their sudden heaviness, she was sitting right next to me. I turned away from her, looking back into the dark hole in the floor.

"What do you want, Aryan?" She made some type of movement, but I couldn't make the motion out in my peripheral vision.

"Just to talk." Her voice had gotten much less course, the condescending tone of omniscience had disappeared. "Actually, to be honest, I wanted to make sure you didn't throw yourself down into this stupid pit." I heard the sound of something hitting the pit wall opposite the two of us. She must have picked up a piece of displaced rubble and thrown it. "What the hell possessed the old lady to dig this? Did she just walk in here one day and decide that this would be the perfect spot to start drilling a hole because there was bound to be something? I honestly need to know what was going through her mind when she made this decision."

"Well, then why don't you just go in there and find out?" I choked on the bile that came up with the sentence, but it was too late to push it back now.

"Because I don't want to." She carried on the conversation like I hadn't just spit acid. "Do you wanna know how I knew you'd be in here?" She waited for a moment in the silence, and I couldn't tell whether she was waiting for my answer, or if she was simply extracting it from my head. "What the hell is your issue today?" She asked, the coarseness in her voice returning. I raised my hands in a sarcastic and overly dramatic shrug.

"I'm sure you could find out. I'm sure you're finding out right now." I said. Aryan said nothing, and for a moment, the room was noiseless, with the exception of the hollow hissing coming from the dark hole.

"Lloyd…" Aryan said, cutting into the silence, "look at me." Her voice was quiet, a tone that could almost be mistaken for gentleness, but I knew better. I kept my eyes trained on the hole in front of me. There was another moment of silence. "Lloyd! We are having an adult conversation and you will look at me while we are having it!" She wasn't kidding around anymore, her tone was angry, the kind of angry that would land me at the bottom of that pit if I didn't watch. I looked at her just as she snapped her fingers in my face. "Don't think like that. See? I am looking in your head, but I'm reassuring you that I won't push you into that hole, no matter how much you may deserve it right now." I glanced back towards the darkness, and Aryan snapped her fingers again, pulling me back to attention. She pointed her index finger right at me. "Now you listen to me, you may think you can act like an arrogant piece of shit because you're upset, but you can't. You're confused and I get that, I really do, but that gives you no excuse. I don't care if you're twelve or twenty, you are not to be rude to other people because you're not handling the situation well."

"Well, how would have you handled a situation like this?" I snapped, trying not to growl. "Would you have magically forgotten? Would you have just taken it like it was no big deal?" Aryan stood up in a movement that was so abrupt and sudden that for a moment I found myself worrying that she would plummet to her death.

"No! I wouldn't have handled it calmly, as a matter of fact, I would have handled just like you are now! And that's the damn problem!" Her voice was getting louder, and it began to echo off the walls of the pit. "I will not have you push away anyone who tries to help you because you don't understand your emotions, because that's what I did until I was seventeen! Do you know how old I am now, Lloyd?" She paused for a moment, but if she was giving me a chance to answer, she was not making it apparent. "I'm seventeen right now! That's my entire lifetime I spent so emotionally detached that I couldn't understand the emotions people felt towards me! Hell, I didn't feel sympathy for the people I save every day until I was fifteen, before that, I pitied them!" She pointed another accusing finger at me. "And I'll be damned if you end up like me."

"Why do you care?" I shouted, raising my hands in exasperation.

"Because you know as well as I that I'm more your mother than that woman will ever be!" Almost as soon as she said it, her expression changed to one of someone who immediately wanted to take it back. She clinched her jaw, but her eyes lost none of the anger she had, the anger I had brought on. I didn't know what to say, I had realized about two seconds after the comment about reading my mother's mind had escaped my lips that I had crossed an unseen line set never to be crossed. Aryan's hand was stretched across her face, hiding her anger and silently voicing her irritation with herself. I struggled to let out a sigh.

"Look," I started, "I didn't mean that. I'm just letting my emotions get to me." Aryan let out a muffled giggle behind her hand before throwing her head back with a large gasp of breath, and falling back down next to me with exasperation.

"That's the problem, isn't it?" She asked, extending her palms to the sky and letting them drop back down into her lap. "We're expected to be strong and diligent. We're expected to make the right decisions in high pressure situations, with no outside influence." She smirked, but it quickly dissolved back into a look of neutrality. "But on the other hand, we're expected to have empathy. To be human, and to make the human decision." She sat there for a moment, letting the silence wash over us. I watched her, forgetting all earlier instincts I had to turn away. "To show mercy to the worthy, or serve justice to the damned." She half muttered this, almost as it she was taking to herself more than me.

Aryan turned towards me, her hair whipping violently though she gently turned her head. Her hair was much thinner and more feathery than her brother's, whose hair, upon this moment of random thought, I realized was much heavier and choppy. Aryan smiled, knowing look returning, before her face got serious again. "Who makes that decision, Lloyd? Who draws the line between worth?" I thought about this for a second.

"God?" I hesitantly asked. Aryan smiled again, but it once again fell.

"In the next world, maybe," she let out a burdened sigh, "but, here, it's ours. Our decision. And we have one single moment to make it." She turned her head back towards the pit, chewing on the corner of her lip in thought. I looked back into the swallowing darkness and wondered what was even down there. What was at the end of an unseen path? I felt Aryan's shoulder nudge against me, and I turned back towards her. "Hey, wanna know how I knew you were in here?"

"How?" Her neutral expression made no movement, lacking the earlier enthusiasm that had accompanied the question. She held up her left hand, fingers fanned out as she pointed to each and labeled them. "Cole." Her thumb. "Kai." Index. "Zane." Middle. "Jay." Ring. "And Lloyd." Pinkie. She gave her fingers one last wiggle, before laying her hand flat against the floor, fingers still spread wide.

With her right hand, she removed one of the several thin knives that remained hidden in the folds of her uniform. She held it so the pointed end of the blade was towards the ground, the rest held loosely in her fist as not to cut herself. Pressing the point into the tile under her left thumb, she gently began to sing as she slowly tapped the tip in the areas between her fingers.

 _Oh, I have all my fingers._

 _The knife goes chop, chop, chop,_

 _If I miss the spaces in-between, my fingers will come off._

 _And if I hit my fingers,_

 _The blood will soon come out._

 _But it's all the same I play this game cause that's what it's all about._

She continued into another verse about the speed getting faster, but I was more focused on what the last verse had said, as she picked up speed in both the haunting tune, and the tapping of the knife. Eventually, she got so fast I found it hard to keep up, my spinning head finally thudding to a stop as she plunged the knife into the soft dirt between the tile and rubble. After a moment, she held up her hands in questioning. "Do you understand?" I was quiet for a moment, before speaking softly to her.

"But it's all the same, I play this game cause that's what it's all about." I repeated, looking her directly in her eyes. "I understand what you're trying to tell me, but at the same time, I don't." I shook my head. "I don't understand why someone would play a game with such a risk." Aryan shrugged.

"Because I have a knife."

"That's stupid." I said with a scoff. Aryan shrugged yet again.

"But it's true. You gamble your fingers every time you pick one up, so it just makes sense you'd play a game with them." She gave me a sideways smile. "Unfortunately, you and I don't have the option to put our knives down." She laid her hand on my shoulder. "And if that woman really is who she says she is, than you just added another finger." With a quick shift of her weight, Aryan stood up next to me. I felt the confusion spread across my features. I shook my head.

"Wait," I shifted my body and looked up at her, "so what you're saying is that I'm only angry because I have one more person to protect in this game I'm forced to play because I'm… _we…_ have powers _?_ " Aryan stared into the depth of the pit in front of us, not even acknowledging my question. After moments of this uncomfortable silence, she opened her mouth.

"I think I understand this pit now." I felt my mouth hang open in irritation.

"What?" I asked her. This time, she looked down at me.

"You know, men only do stupid things for women, but it works the other way too." Aryan smiled. "Maybe she thought if she could dig deep enough, she'd see your dad." And with that, Aryan turned on her heel and walked towards the door, leaving me alone.

 _I play this game cause that's what it's all about._

•••

 **Yes. I am aware that I feel off the face of the earth. It's almost been a year since my last update, and the honest reason for that is because I have been SO BUSY! You may not believe me, but I haven't had a full night of sleep since February of this year, including the summer.**

 **But for all of you who worry, nothing is wrong. Unless you count a chronic case of "Too Busy For Anything Fun."**

 **Anyway, this isn't a new story. I've had these sitting on my desktop for several months, I just haven't bothered to finish them. Same with updates on** _ **The Origin of the Silver Ninja of Energy**_ **and** _ **Savage,**_ **I've got half of them, and I'm working as hard and as fast as I can on the rest. However, I've been gone for so long that I completely forgot how to write characters that are usually very easy for me, such as Aryan and Lloyd. These "one-shots" are simply an outlet for me to get back into my characterization and will be completed as I update.**

 **This chapter was actually much longer, but I decided not to bore you with too many words (and not to mention I'm too tired to edit the other half tonight). The next part will be up before you know it.**

 **As always, thank you for your support! Even if I did go ghost on you (Sorry, Cole).**

 **-Legion**


	2. Chapter 2

**This intro is for the people who asked who the character Aryan is and how she plays into the story. In this universe I am creating, Aryan is the Ninja of Energy, the fifth ninja to join the team, and the second female protagonist introduced, after Nya. Though I try not to involve Aryan as much as I involve the actual canon characters (I know you guys are really here for them), she acts as Lloyd's mentor/caregiver, and helps him through the transition of his morals in the first season. She and Lloyd both went through the same issue of expectation vs. what they actually wanted for themselves, and therefore they understand one another. That is why she is mentioned as much as she is during this particular "origin story", because she is the character that helped Lloyd discover who he really was. He also considers her to be the most trustworthy. If you want to learn more about her, and how she arrives and fits into the story, The Origin of the Silver Ninja of Energy is up on my page and and the first part of her origin story, what happened before she came to Ninjago, titled Legion will be up before the end of the month.**

•••

" _If you're lost, the whore house is that way." I may have been a bit battered, but boldness of the boy's words, whose name I had never actually bothered to learn, came as an absolute shock to me. I quickly tried to retract the thought. Of course he would say that: It was the evil thing to do. The subject of his insult, an older girl who had just appeared from the other side of the quarry, let her eyebrows shoot up in surprise._

" _Excuse me?" Her tone came off as surprised, with the additive of disbelieving laughter. My tormentor smirked, and turned to face the girl, balancing all of his weight on one hip, imitating her girlish stance._

" _You heard me." He said with a disrespectful nod. "Beat it, tramp." The girl sneered and crossed her arms. Her dark eyes made quick movement over towards one of the boy's cronies, but quickly moved back over to the boy himself._

" _What are you?" She asked. "Nine?" She uncrossed her arms and gestured towards me, the first notion that she had actually noticed my presence. "Now, how about you leave the boy alone, and I won't have to call your parents." Her tone was condescending, and I could tell she had no intention of calling any of their parents._

 _It was almost like she was looking for a fight._

The rest of the scene went by like a blur for me; I got hit in the head by a rock, the girl punched the boy and took me to get ice cream. To be honest, I couldn't even remember why the next day. All I remembered was _her_ , her demeanor, her courage. The way she was ready for the fight, the way the possibility of it had excited her.

I hadn't known it then, but that one moment had set the example for the path I wished to take. I was a coward, and was always known to be one, but this girl had shown me what I truly wanted to be: A fighter. And unbeknownst to me, a hero.

And I was a _stranger,_ a tormented boy she had happened upon in a quarry. She owed me nothing, but all the same, she saved me. Saved me because I was in distress, and it was the right thing to do, but more than that, she had _cared_ for me. Checked my injury, asked _me_ if I was alright. For the first time in what seemed like an eternity, someone had shown me kindness. Another amazing thing happened that day, once again unbeknownst:

" _I'm Aryan, by the way." I didn't say anything for a moment, before hearing my voice shakily escape my mouth._

" _My family isn't exactly… well received around here." I hung my head at the prospect that I might lose the only friend I had made in years. The girl, Aryan, didn't even take a moment to consider this before responding._

" _Well, good thing I'm not from around here." This excited me, and my smile grew before I could even consider swallowing it down._

" _In that case, I'm Lloyd. Lloyd Garmadon." She gently smiled back at me, another action of kindness that made me giddy beyond belief. She stuck out her hand._

" _Nice to meet you, Lloyd." I took her hand and shook it gently. I couldn't get my stupid smile to go away._

" _You too." I replied._

Even after all the crap I took from my unfortunate first meeting with her "friends," my decision still remained sound in my head. My mother had abandoned me, my father had never even met me, but I had found the perfect subject to fit the mother-sized hole in my life.

And I filled it.

•••

 _You can't pull that shit. Everyone knows your father doesn't want you._

In hindsight, I should have known trying to weasel my way out of punishment by claiming my birthright was a bad thing to do, but hey, that's what we're all about, right? But what he said next, though it was a completely provoked reaction.

 _Even your own mother abandoned you here._

A student at Darkley's was trained, with questionable methods, not to show fear. Not to show pain or empathy. The older boys, the eighteen year olds that were graduating this year, they _scared_ me. Brad Tudabone, my personal tormentor/only friend, he called them "inhuman."

By my current age of nine, you were long since trained to hide your fear, but I had failed every exam, no matter how hard I practiced and studied.

 _Everyone knows your father doesn't want you. Even your own mother abandoned you here._

My professors were told to berate their students, it builds our character, but I was unprepared for what he was willing to say. His voice sounded large and far away, and his words reverberated through my skull. My shock and fear was clearly displayed on my face.

Maybe because it was true.

My mother, I had to have one, but I had never known her. I lived with her for five years, but as soon as I was old enough, she dropped me here. I assume I chose to forget her, instead filling my memories with the stories I had been told about my legend of a father, and I was extremely proud. My father had _never_ been in the picture, but by that logic, that meant he couldn't have abandoned me. I assumed for the longest time that he might not have known about me, but my professor erased every daydream I had conjured to fill the parental hole.

I was not wanted.

I was a failure.

I was not good enough.

•••

It was a new feeling for me, being tense all the time, but I knew I'd develop the trait. I saw the way the others kept their backs and shoulders rigid at all times, even around only one another. I think it's been a long time since any of them had the chance to relax. But how could they? Forgive my language, but the five of us have been fucked ever since the day we were born. It was fate. It was destiny. I didn't hear her enter the room, and I especially didn't expect her hand on my shoulder. It was cold and fragile with age, and it nearly made me jump out of my skin. It was the second time in the last hour, and I felt my face burn with shame.

"Lloyd?" She said, her voice soft with guilt. For a moment, I almost reached a hand up to comfort her, before I came to my senses. I wrenched my shoulder out from her grasp.

"Go away." I said, trying to cover the awkward break in my voice. Completely skipping over the process of puberty was not doing my body any favors. The woman let out a sigh, pulling her slumping arm back to her body.

"You know," she said after a moment of deafening silence, "I always knew you were destined for greater things." She began to walk towards the side of the chasm. "I knew you were to become the legendary Green Ninja." She gave me a gentle smile and turned her body so she could begin edging her way around the circumference of the chasm, but her smile faltered when she reached the other side. "That's why I left, to set you on a greater path." I bit down on my bottom lip.

"'Left' wouldn't be the word I used for it." I felt the words slip out through my gritted teeth. Getting angry probably wasn't the best idea at this time. I could almost hear Zane's voice.

" _When people get a taste of power, it makes them feel invincible. Powerful people while angry are the greatest danger, it is then when they cannot control their actions. "_

My mother turned towards me, shock showing clearly on her face. It looked fake. "Everything I've done, I've done for your own good." I raised my hand to my face and pressed it against my mouth, trying to control whatever violent outburst had just bubbled up in the back of my throat like bile. If she noticed, she said nothing and turned towards the banners on the back wall. "A long time ago, the first Spinjutzu master, your grandfather, protected the land of Ninjago with the four Golden Weapons." I pressed my hand hander into my mouth. "And for a while, everything was at peace, but one day, a powerful evil arrived in Ninjago, one that proved to be more than an equal to the power of the Golden Weapons." She gestured to the third banner. "Only the power of the Golden Master proved to be powerful enough to defeat the evil. The resulting explosion split the land of Ninjago in half, and banished the evil to one half: The Dark Island." My mother's face was bright with a smile, one more genuine than any I had seen her with so far, especially towards me. I bit my thumb, reeling from the obvious avoidance of the real problem. My mother walked back around towards me, placing her hands on my shoulders when she reached me. I felt my teeth sink into the pad of my thumb with the pressure in was applying.

The fake smile was back, but it was soon replaced by a dark scowl. "And though your grandfather tried, he could not manage to collect all of the essence the evil left behind, and as a result, one of our own was effected. His thoughts became dark and unchained. He opposed your father and uncle, and violently resisted them during the Anacondrai War."

"What?" I asked, quickly wiping the blood off the pad of my thumb with my pointer finger. My mother made a dismissing gesture.

"It doesn't matter, my dear." She laughed lightly, pulling my stiff shoulders into her body for a hug. "All that matters now is that you are the next Golden Master, and now… now I'm here for you." Her words sounded full of everything, but not a single piece of what I wanted to hear: Guilt, sadness, fear for my safety. My body felt cold everywhere she was touching me, and I knew she felt that I was not returning her embrace. My hands hung limply at my sides, until she finally loosened her arms, and I backed away.

She looked at me. I looked at her. I remembered the gentleness and emotion in her voice when she greeted my uncle. The falseness in her voice when she talked to me. The way she had measured up my friends when she saw them, no doubt comparing them to their predecessors. The only emotion she showed toward me in any way was how bitter she acted toward Aryan, and it was Aryan who was there. Not her. Not Misako Garmadon, the woman who gave birth to me. I was raised by abusive teachers and five teenagers. And it dawned on me; I wasn't bitter towards my mother.

No. I was pissed. And the thought of what a shitty mother she'd been compared to kids five or six years older than myself; it was funny. I felt a smile spread across my face, but my mother's fell into concern.

"What?" She asked. I chuckled.

"You haven't said a thing about my age." My mother's face fell.

"W..what?" She asked again, a look of surprise on her face. "What about your age?" Another laugh escaped my lips.

"Honestly, Mother," I said, feeling the plastic words slide across my tongue as they had across hers, "You think you would have noticed five extra years of age on your own son." Her face crumpled.

"Five…extra years?" She asked slowly. I saw it in her face, she was confused, and with that look, all the cockiness that had graced me moments ago vanished. I bit my lip to stop it from shaking.

"You… you really don't know how old I am?" I asked, my volume rising a bit at the end. My mother opened her mouth to say something, but I cut her off. "It's been only seven years, and you really have no idea how old I am?!" I was shouting now, and my mother gestured to me, attempting to quiet me down.

"Shh, Lloyd! My co-workers will hear you!" She whispered desperately.

"You think I give a damn if your co-workers hear you?" I shouted back. "I'm your son! My needs take priority! They SHOULD HAVE taken priority!" My mother only stared. Her eyes grew wide, her irises skirted around, looking for a place to escape. To escape the conversation. To escape _me._ It was in that one moment of her desperation that I realized why. Why she had sent me away. Why she had never contacted me in all the years I spent alone at Darkley's. I shook my head slowly.

"But they didn't, because you were afraid." My voice was barely a whisper. "Of me, you were always afraid."

•••

"You! You!" I shouted. "You just made me your nemesis!" My words were a bit labored, as I was hanging from my cape, and it was cutting into my neck, but I tried to sound confident. I tried to sound menacing. "You'll pay for this!" My face felt wet, and I knew I was crying. I always cried when I got frustrated. I found my mind wandering once again. Maybe that's the reason they kicked me out, because I cried when I got frustrated.

I heard someone laugh below me, and I glared down at the group of people below me. The butt-faces who put me up here, the _ninja,_ five of them. Four had removed their hoods, having bought the candy that was supposed to be _mine._ I wanted to kick the smug looks off their faces, but my legs wouldn't reach that far down.

"Crime doesn't pay, muchacho!" The red one shouted up to me. "You can take that to the bank!" I didn't know what that meant, but I had a feeling they were making fun of me, so I yelled the worse word I could think of in the moment.

"You assholes!" They just laughed, and I wanted to scream, thrashing my body around in a vain attempt to get down. The fifth ninja, though she hadn't taken her hood off, was quite obviously a girl. About two heads shorter than the shortest boy, she ran over and grabbed the arm of the black-clad ninja.

"We need to get him down." Her voice was firm and commanding, and I could have sworn that I recognized it. The boy she had touched yanked his arm out of her grasp.

"No. The brat deserves what he got." The corners of the girl's eyes scrunched, and she glanced towards the other three, who just stared at her. For a moment, I felt like I was intruding on something.

"Nothing?" She said to them. "He's just a kid!" She gestured towards me. Nobody reacted, and the girl took a deep breath, looking angrily at the first ninja she had addressed. "May I remind you, that kid is not your enemy, Cole," she hissed through her teeth, "and neither am I." Her head tilted upwards, "Now, go be an ass somewhere else. If you're not gonna play the hero, then I guess I'll do it." All four of them looked at her, before slowly turning their backs and walking away. At the end of the street, the white-clad ninja turned back to look at her, but she was already on her way up the side of the building to retrieve me. I had been uncharacteristically still during this exchange, and as she reached me, I began to squirm and shout again.

"No! No! Don't touch me! I hate you! I can get down myself!" I thrashed and threw weak punches in her direction, but she just hung off the gutter and gave me a look.

"I'm sure you can," she said, "but without breaking your neck? I'm not so sure about that." Wrapping her legs around the gutter as to free up her hands, she reached over and began to toy with the end of my cape, tangled up in the corner of the building. I continued to thrash, but the rough fabric of my cape was rubbing against my neck, and I eventually just hung limply.

"Why do you wanna help me, anyway?" I mumbled. I was pouting just a bit. The girl laughed.

"Because, I don't want you to choke. Or fall to your death." Her eyes got a bit sad. "We're not all like Asshole and Company down there." She reached her arm around me and caught me underneath my arms as my cape came undone from the siding. "Ugh," she groaned, "you're heavier than you look."

"Or maybe," I said as she began her slow, one-handed descent down the drainage gutter, "you're just incredibly weak compared to me." Once she got close enough to the ground, she let go of the gutter and fell to the ground with a dull thud. She shook her head once and gently set me down, brushing off my shoulders once she let go of my arms.

"Well, that could be true." She said, pointing her thumb behind her in the direction the other four ninja left in. "Do you really think I'd need those idiots if I was strong enough to lift you without any complaint?" I stared at her as she gave me one final brush and straightened up.

"No offense, lady," I said, putting my hands on my hips in an attempt to make myself seem taller, "but I don't know you, and you are my enemy." Her eyes narrowed, and I could see her eyebrows knit in confusion under her mask.

"What do you mean you don't…" She instinctively touched her face, and her face relaxed. "Oh, sorry, sometimes I forget I have this damn thing on." With one fluid motion, she pulled the hood off her head and ran her hand down her dark braid. I stared at her for a moment before my face broke into an uncontrolled smile.

"Aryan!" She smiled back at me, pointing her thumb once again in the direction the ninja left.

"Come on, I'll buy you an ice cream."

•••

"So," I started, my feet swinging under the bench we had situated ourselves on, "how'd you end up with…" I made a stabbing gesture with my ice cream before quickly putting it back in my mouth.

"The boys?" Aryan asked, licking the ice cream she had gotten for herself. I nodded, and she shrugged. "I was always with them." She gestured towards me with her dessert, "Even when I met you the first time," she pondered for a moment, "but at that time, they had kidnapped me." I felt my mouth fall open a bit, and she must have sensed this because she quickly followed up. "But now I'm here of my own free will!" Her face once again fell into a look of confusion, "But that might count as Stockholm's syndrome." She seemed to think about this for a moment before shaking her head. "Who cares about me? I'm already messed up beyond repair! I wanna hear about you!"

I was a bit taken aback. Of course, this entire day has taken me a bit aback, but this was by far the strangest. No one had ever asked me about how I was. I don't think I'd ever asked another person how they were, I think people just told me. I smiled broadly. "Well, you'll be _appalled_ to hear that I graduated top of my class from Darkley's School for Bad Boys." I crossed my arms in triumph and Aryan raised her eyebrow at me.

"Hmmm… no… I don't think so…" She said slowly, drawing out her consonants. "Last time we met you told me you were eleven, and by the constant changes of volume in your voice I guess you're about twelve now." She pressed her finger against her lips and nodded. "People don't graduate until they're 18." She paused. "I think. Am I right?" She glanced off into the distance. "I hate this place sometimes."

"Well, I got moved up classes because I was doing so well."

"You got kicked out." The truth of it stung, but I wasn't going to give her the satisfaction. Standing up abruptly, I threw the ice cream she bought me and threw it down.

"What do you know?" I said, raising my voice. "You're just a stupid ninja who doesn't know anything about anything!" She didn't say anything, she just looked at me. That wasn't the reaction I was expecting. "I can't believe I thought you were my friend!" With those words, she stood up and walked a ways away before turning around.

"I know I'm not gonna convince you today, but I am going to tell you the same thing I told the others." She gave me a small smile. "I am not your enemy, Lloyd Garmadon. There are much bigger fish to fry than either me or you." She turned back around and continued to walk towards the edge of town. "And by the way," she shouted back at me, "I wouldn't stand in front of that store for too long! I kinda didn't pay for that ice cream!" I could practically hear the laugh in her voice. "If you ever need anything, just break into a store or something."

I don't think she saw it, but I couldn't help but smile.

•••

 **Well, this one-shot is becoming longer than I thought, as its going on three chapters. I just wanted to post this to let you all know I'm not dead. Just busy and having a lot of trouble writing Aryan's dialogue. Yeah, I'm working on it. Anyway, I also wanted to let everyone know that because I've been kind of unavailable lately, I've decided to start a tumblr under my pen name, LegionInfinity. Here I'll post story covers, mini-stories, updates on how these stories are going, and as an added bonus, anyone can ask me any question or give me any suggestion they like.**

 **That's all. Talk to you all later, don't forget to read and review!**

•••


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